Every time your audience goes online, they get hit with a tidal wave of digital noise. As a marketer, how do you get your message noticed? How do you persuade a jaded online audience to ditch the noise-cancelling earplugs and listen to your story? The answer: Video.

Video works, and the stats prove it. Online video can help you to:

Increase web visitations by 560% when you expose your audience to a banner that contains video

Boost viewer engagement by 400% using online video as compared to static content such as text and graphics

Attract 200% - 300% more visitors by regularly posting video on your site, with time on the page rising from 1.5 minutes without video to 3 minutes with video

Skyrocket brand recall by an 900% when using video on multiple screens, such as online, mobile, and connected TV

If you haven't heard the story, back in July, two Swedish ad executives from Studio Total piloted a plane to the capital of neighboring Belarus and dropped 879 teddy bears attached to parachutes and wearing signs which called for free speech. The stunt was aimed to rile the feathers of Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko who is said to be quite erratic and authoritarian.

Apparently the stunt worked as Lukashenko fired his chiefs of the air force and border service for allowing the plane to enter the country's airspace undetected. Lukashenko even expelled the Swedish ambassador, withdrew his country's envoy from Stockholm, closed his embassy in Sweden, arrested a journalism student who posted pictures of the airdrop as well as a real estate agency who rented a flat to one of the Swedes involved in the stunt.

Microsoft has, today, pulled a video it posted Friday entitled " A fly on the wall in Cupertino" in which two actors present to "T", aka a fictitious TIm Cook (which is this video actually looks more like Steve Jobs), what they've been working on leading up to last week's Apple iPhone event.

The video has been pulled from official channels but still floats around and can be viewed. Of the video, Microsoft issued a statement which read,"The video was intended to be a light-hearted poke at our friends from Cupertino. But it was off the mark, and we've decided to pull it down."

Life is tough for a fashion model. They have to undergo makeup, corset tightenign and the rantings of lunatic fashionista directors. And so it would seem at some point enough is enough. And that's exactly what happens to three ladies in this John Camereon Mitchell-directed video for Agent Provocateur.

Of course, it wouldn't be an Agent Provocateur ad unless the three ladies stripped down to their lingerie, engaged in lesbian-esque intimate moments with one another and pranced about for us all to get a good look at their ridiculously hot bodies.

It's been a while since we've witnessed a contextual advertising screw up. While we're sure they still happen all the time and people have, for the most part, just become immune to them, it's still intriguing to see them pop up from time to time.

Adrants reader Micah Donahue sent us this mobile screenshot of a Progressive ad banner above a CNN story about today's shooting inside a D.C naval facility. In the banner, Progressive's Flo can be seen aiming a gun at the viewer. Of course it's not an actual gun but the placement of the ad above a story about a shooting is, at best, disconcerting.

To be fair, it's not even clear whether or not this is a contextually served ad. It's appearance could be completely random. Even so, an ad that has an image which appears to look at though someone is aiming a gun at you is probably not the best creative execution (no pun intended) to have in your rotation.

Oh the internet. It gives us so many wonderful things. So many things we'd would never have experience before like, well, like the Prancercise® Lady. If you haven't heard of her, her name is Joanna Rohrback and she does this exercise thing which aims to "create the most satisfying, holistic and successful fitness program one could hope to experience." And it has nothing to do with riding a horse.

Anyway, Rohrback, along with Dennis Rodman, an elephant, King Kong and, yes, Norman Bates, can be seen in the upcoming Wonderful Pistachios Get Crackin' campaign which debuts today.

The campaign, which began in 2007, has featured such cultural oddities as Honey Badger, Snooki, Snoop Lion, Keyboard Cat, The Village People and, yes, the Secret Service.

Wait, New Zealand has an army? OK, kidding. Of course they do. Even tiny islands in the Southwestern Pacific need defensive forces. And to make sure everyone knows that, Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand is out with a campaign for the New Zealand Defense Force entitled "Purpose Built."

The creative, which aims to inform the public the armed forces are much more than combat, centers on the notion that joining the army is less about obligation and more about caring and purpose.

It's an age old question. How soon is too soon to poke fun at a disaster? As history would inform, the answer is usually never. There are just too many emotions tied up in certain unfortunate events to make light of them. Even an event that happened 101 years ago is seemingly off limits.

When Red Bull made light of the Titanic sinking by suggesting the Titanic would not have sunk had it been carrying Red Bull, viewers were outraged and lodged complaints with the UK's Advertising Standards Authority.

Last night at the 65th Annual Creative Arts Emmys, Grey New York and MJZ director Nicolai Fuglsig won the 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial for their Canon "Inspired" commercial. That's the one with the tire on fire rolling down the hill.

The two other ads in the running this year were BBH's Google Chrome "Jess Time" and CP+B's Grey Poupon "The Chase."

It's not as if we haven't seen an ad that brings tears to the eyes before but this one is so basic, so human and, in all likelihood, a representation of something that happens more often then we know. While the media love to celebrate the tragedy of life, in hidden corners of the world -- and right here at home under our noses -- acts of kindness happen every day. This work from Thai communications brand TrueMove H captures that that very basic human spirit.